TITUSVILLE -- On the outskirts of this Space Coast city, in a non-descript industrial park not far from the rocket gantries of the John F. Kennedy Space Center, space training is coming down to the level of kids.

The nation`s second U.S. Space Camp, modeled after the original in Huntsville, Ala., debuts today near NASA Town with its first group of campers -- 97 in all, ages 10 to 13. They will stay for five days.

The campers will work with $500,000 worth of equipment, including a full-size mock-up of the shuttle Discovery`s cabin and forward fuselage, space walk simulators, a look-alike lunar rover, and a bank of computer terminals and flight video screens like those manned by mission control technicians.

Sixteen counselors will help campers build and launch their own model rockets, design miniature space stations and conduct space experiments. They`ll also participate in a simulated shuttle mission.

Besides getting hands-on instruction in a 12,000-square-foot building off State Road 405, campers will tour the Kennedy Space Center, see movies at Spaceport USA and take trips to a planetarium at Brevard Community College in Cocoa.

``Part of it`s fantasy, part of it`s polish,`` said Leslie Neihouse, spokeswoman for Florida`s Space Camp, which has signed up 2,700 boys and girls for its first summerlong session.

Space Camp is co-sponsored by the non-profit Space Camp and Mercury 7 foundations. It is not formally affiliated with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

However, NASA does give it old hardware and technical assistance.

The success of the Alabama facility led to formation of Florida`s camp. And the countdown has begun for a third camp, a franchise in Japan slated to open in 1990.

The Alabama camp burgeoned from a 20-student summer program in 1980 to a 12,000-camper program last year. Enrollment this year is expected to top 18,000.

A Space Academy for adults was launched there three years ago, but there are no plans yet to duplicate it in Florida.

Florida`s Space Camp is getting off the ground in a modest way. Its headquarters, a building formerly occupied by an aerospace metals firm, is being leased. A 40-room wing of the Howard Johnson Motor Lodge in downtown Titusville will serve as campers` dorms.

However, scouting has begun for a permanent home in the Titusville area.

The camp last week resembled the inside of an aeronautics museum turned topsy-turvy. Scattered about were an old engine from Apollo Saturn V, a mock- up of a Hughes Communications satellite, a large hemisphere of the moon, mannequins wearing authentic NASA spacesuits, and the ``Five Degrees of Freedom,`` a machine that simulates the quirkiness of working in gravity-free space.

Cables and springs hung from the ceiling for a micro-gravity simulator, a machine that simulates moon walks by reducing riders to one-sixth of their original body weight.

In the center of the two-story room stood the replica of a shuttle cabin. Assembled from wood and fiberglass, the orbiter mock-up will be linked to computers that will run on specially designed software.

Exhibit design manager Tom Fricker said preparations have gone smoothly. The only big snag was discovered upon delivery of the orbiter mock-up: the space shuttle`s seats were built for grown-ups.

``Our pilots are smaller than the regular astronauts. We wanted to make sure they could reach the switches,`` Fricker said.